Bao la Kiswahili
Bao la Kiswahili → Italian, Spanish. Bao (Swahili for: "board") is a mancala game played in Swahili and Bajun communities in eastern Africa, e.g. Zanzibar, coastal Tanzania and Kenya, and the Comores. The game is also known by the Sakalava in northwestern Madagascar. Nowadays, it has also arrived in the Swahili hinterland, where several Muslim people have adopted the game. The Yao in Malawi changed its original name to Bawo. Bao is also played by the Bangubangu in Kisangani, D. R. of the Congo, and the game was also reported from Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi. The game was first described by the French traveller Flacourt in 1658 who saw it on Madagascar. Thomas Hyde found it 1694 on Anjouan, Comores. The Bao poem "Bao Naligwa" was written in the 1820s by the Swahili poet Muyaka bin Haji in Mombasa, Kenya. The oldest still surviving Bao board was made in 1896 in Malawi and is kept today in the British Museum in London. In 1966, the Chama Cha Bao ("Bao Society") was formed in Tanzania to promote the game. On Zanzibar, there are about 16 Bao clubs and about 10 masters who are called fundi ("artist") or bingwa ("master"). The strongest players are Abdulrahim Muhiddin Foum, Masoud Hassan Ali (known as "Kijumbe") and Ali Maulid Hussein ("Maulidi"). Regular championships are held on Zanzibar (Tanzania), on Lamu (Kenya) and in Malawi. In Europe, tournaments were organized in Cambridge, England and Senigallia, Italy. Some call Bao the "king of mancala games" as it is considered the most difficult and complex of them. Bao Literature Bao Naligwa Nalipohiteza Bao, Bao la mti haiba, Nali hiishika ngao katikati hajishiba; Nikiteza kwa vituo hafunga kwa namu haba Ndipo nambapo "shurba" oani bao naligwa! Mtaji nalohiuta nalihiuta hashiba Nami nikaziokota hafa hajaza kibaba Baole likatakata msi namu ya akiba Ndipo nambapo "shurba" oani bao naligwa! Translation: When I played a game of Bao, board of wood well-decorated A strong defense I did allow in the center saturated; Now seeds were sown into a row which in few turns devastated I said 'Shurba' when I played it, look at the Bao game I've won! When I played this one mtaji, I played it satisfactor'ly Until the seeds picked up by me filled up the cup entirely It swept the board then clear and free, no seeds in store were left to be I said 'Shurba' accordingly, look at the Bao game I've won! Muyaka bin Haji, Tanzania A Game of Bawo Take your cue from a game of Bawo where sides at the edge of doom are best conceded as losses and easy withdrawal leads to stunning victories Springs hot and cold, dry up; flowers bloom and fade and trees at times shed their leaves and their barks neither recall the bloom nor visit springs that once gushed waters - memories are sweetest unruffled by daylight and forced ceremonies stink worst than rudeness This meticulous insouciance these decoys made in heaven follow a standard design with familiar specifications Take you cue from a game of Bawo; neither recall the bloom of flowers nor the showers of spring. Felix Mnthali, Malawi A Bao Song from Kizingitini, Kenya Kulla mvuvi pweza Madirikano mwambani Kulla mchezi wa bao Madirikano baoni. Translation: All the fishers of octopus Their meeting place is the rock, All the players of Bao Their meeting place is the board. Rules The Bao board consists of four rows, each one with eight holes. The holes are rounded except the fourth from the right in the central rows, which is squarish and called nyumba ("house"). A nyumba ceases temporarily to be a functional nyumba, when it has less than six seeds, and ultimately, when its contents have been captured or moved in a lap. In the rules given below, a nyumba is always a meant to be a "functional nyumba". The ultimate holes at either end of the inner rows are called kichwa ("head") and the penultimate holes kimbi. Initial Position The position at the start of the game is shown in the diagram. In addition, each player has 22 seeds in reserve. The game is played in turns. Bao la Kiswahili is a game with multilap sowing. Each player only sows around his own two rows. Moves can be with or without capturing. Captures are mandatory. If the first lap of a move is without capture, nothing is captured in the full move. There is an initial phase with special rules, called namua, in which seeds are introduced into play, and the main stage called mtaji, which starts after the move that put the last seed on the board. Namua Stage Sowing without capturing (Takata) If is not possible to make a capture, the player takes a seed from the reserve and adds it into a non-empty hole in his front row: * If the player has a nyumba, he is not permitted to put the seed into it, unless it is the only occupied hole in his front row. * If the player has no nyumba, he can only add the seed to a hole containing at least two seeds, unless all non-empty holes in the front row are singletons. Then the player picks all the seeds from this hole and sows them into consecutive holes in either direction, clockwise or anticlockwise. * If, however, the seed is put into a nyumba, he takes just two seeds from it and sows them in either direction. If the last seed is sown into a non-empty hole, but not a nyumba, its contents are taken and the sowing continues until the last seed falls in an empty hole, which also ends the turn. * If, however, the lap ends in the nyumba, the move is not continued and the turn is over without delay. Sowing with capturing (Mtaji) It is possible to capture, if two occupied holes face each other in the player's inner rows. Then the player must put a seed into any of his holes, which could effect a capture, and ... Mtaji Stage Takata If the player has no reserve seeds left and cannot capture, he may choose any hole of his front row, including the nyumba, which contains more than one seed, and sows its contents in either direction: * If there are only singletons in the front row, he may choose a hole in his back row, but no singletons. The move keeps on going with multiple laps until the last seed is dropped into an empty hole. * The front row may never be emptied, not even temporarily. If the only occupied hole of the front row is a kichwa and it contains two or more seeds, they must be sown towards the center of the front row. Sowing With capturing If still in namua stage, the player must put a seed from his reserve in a hole on his front row that has an opponent's hole opposite to it which is not empty. Then he takes the contents of the opponent's hole and sows these seeds beginning from a kichwa (an extrem hole in the front row) and going to the center of the row. *If he has captured from any of the two holes on the right of the row, he must start on the right kichwa. *If he has captured from any of the two holes on the left of the row, he must start on the left kichwa. *If he has captured in any of the four central holes, and he was already sowing in a clockwise sense, he starts on the left. If in an anticlockwise sense, no the right. It is, he keeps the same sense he already had. *In any other case, he can choose from which kichwa to start. He keeps on sowing as in takasa, but if a sowing ends in a non empty hole on the front row, and if the opposite hole is not empty, he captures the seeds and sows them as before. Another difference with takasa is that if the player still has the house and ends a sowing in it he can choose to either stop the move or keep on with the nyumba contents (doing safari). If there were no reserve seeds, the player begins sowing from any hole (not a singleton) in a way that the sowing will end in a non empty hole in the front row whose opposite hole is also non empty, and so capturing. This is a mtaji. The move keeps on according to the previous explanation, but if a sowing ends in the nyumba he must safari (keep on the sowing). Goal and End of the Game The winner is the player who has either captured all counters of the opponent's front row (which is then empty) or is leaving him only singletons, so that the opponent will not be able to move. Takasia There's an extra rule used in just a few special cases. Most players can survive without knowing it. Its name is takasia. If after a takasa move only a single opponent's hole is under threat of being captured, and the opponent must also takasa, this hole is takasiaed and the opponent cannot start to takasa from it, and if a lap ends in it, the move also ends. If there is still a nyumba, it cannot be takasiaed. Also, if there is a single non-empty pit or a single pit containing more than one counter in the front row, it cannot be takasiaed. Trivia To count the seeds at the beginning players usually put all the seeds in their pits in one of the following ways: Then they remove the 20 seeds from the back row and the two seeds from the rightmost hole. See also *Bao dictionary *Bao test External Links *CHAMIJADA. The official site of Dar es Salaam Regional Traditional Games Association (Chama cha michezo ya Jadi Mkoa Dar es Salaam) with Bao rules and other information. *KIBA. 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